


Ocean Eyes, Diamond Mind

by nire



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Smut, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Merman!Jaime, he's learning to be part of her world, or shall I say manmaid!Jaime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2020-12-17 00:49:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21045557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nire/pseuds/nire
Summary: Brienne is the last Tarth, owning only a small cottage on the island that used to belong to her ancestors. Alone, she walks the beach every day, cleaning up tourists' trash. Then one day, she finds a merman, banished from the seas. Despite his protests, she saves him—unknowingly dooming him to a life as a mortal human.





	1. New Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luthien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/gifts), [slipsthrufingers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slipsthrufingers/gifts), [ImberReader](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImberReader/gifts).

> An expansion of [this prompt fill I did for slips on tumblr.](https://nire-the-mithridatist.tumblr.com/post/188060727396/sharing-a-bed-in-a-cottage-by-the-sea-have) If you've never seen it, you really don't have to. It's just a shorter, lighter version of the first chapter of this fic. If you've seen the tumblr post, well, here's roughly the same plot but three times the length of the fill, with backstory and feeeeeeliiiiiiings, and that's only the first chapter! What, indeed, will come after?
> 
> If you come here from A Beauty By Any Other Name, I promise I haven't abandoned ABBAON. I make tiny progress every day. It's just an absolute wench.
> 
> This one is for the three people who regularly hold my hand, reassure me, and help me edit pretty much everything I write these days. Thank you. I cherish you.
> 
> cover image by the inimitable Ro_Nordmann.

There’s a big clump of kelp on the beach, and in it is a naked man.

This is Brienne’s usual trek. The eastern beach of Tarth is the most crowded of all on this resort island, promising clear sapphire waters even now, even after decades of tourists, and a forgiving current with shallows where a modest showing of corals live despite amateur snorkelers’ best attempts to destroy them for the sake of a _ totally dope _ Instagram post. This early, though, when sunlight is still merely a suggestion, there’s no one. A perfect time for Brienne to walk it, picking up empty beer cans and chip packets with her trusty trash picker and hemp bag.

It's a lonely, routine thing. She knows that even if she spent her entire day picking up trash, it would never be enough. But it breaks her heart to see the beach her family had protected for generations be marred so, and so she does her due and at least the view out of her cottage is less depressing. This morning is supposed to be just another day, and yet she’s barely walked fifteen minutes when she sees the naked man blanketed in kelp, small in the distance but unmistakably human-shaped.

Brienne runs to him. For a moment, she sees a different body altogether, smells decomposition instead of sea breeze. For a moment, her lungs seize in preparation for a scream. For a moment, she is terrified.

But when she gets close enough, it’s evident that the man in kelp this morning isn’t the body she remembers. He looks nothing like it, gloriously golden with a swimmer’s body, looking like he fell asleep mid-sunbath instead of having water-filled lungs. And yet, one doesn’t get wrapped in kelp like a beached whale if one is in fact sunbathing. One also does not sunbathe when the sun is barely even out.

Brienne kneels next to him and carefully touches the side of his neck, feeling for a pulse. His skin is cold, clammy, and yet there’s a beat there, steady and true. There are lines slanting parallel on the side of his neck, slits like precise wounds without blood oozing out. She touches them, feeling the slight indentation of the lines with her fingertips, and she feels him hum, too low to be heard over the sound of lapping waves, but enough to vibrate through her touch.

So, he’s alive. Good. A hum also means that he is breathing, and indeed Brienne sees the slight rise and fall of his chest. She slaps his cheek lightly, and he turns his head the other way, displaying the same row of lines on the other side of his neck.

The slits are fluttering. Open and closed in unison, like gills.

How—

Brienne looks to his lower body and the slivers of skin peeking out from between strands of kelp. She’d assumed those are his legs, and they are, at a glance, almost the same golden tan as his upper body. Now that she looks closer, though, there is a slight pattern, mottled a little bit deeper brown, and even more alarmingly, it doesn’t look like human skin. She touches it, carefully, and what meets her touch is something that feels like cold, wet sandpaper.

That’s when she sees them, there and there, flat triangular shapes jutting out of the kelp, which she’d assumed were broken wood pieces or what have you, but now she can see are clearly fins.

Her body moves almost by instinct, now, her mind too loud as it tries to reorient itself but her hand peeling away kelp. There is the fold where the fin joins the body, and there the part where his body narrows to a joint and flares out flat into the shape of a tail.

“Merfolk,” she says, as though all this can’t be real until she says it out loud. It’s just a word. It shouldn’t have changed anything. And yet, she feels the knowledge settling in her as soon as the word escapes her, uneasy but real.

The merman groans in response, frowning before opening his eyes. They are green like sea glass, like broken fragments of a beer bottle whose edges have been smoothed away by the currents. He quickly closes them again, throwing one arm over his eyes. There is webbing between his fingers.

Brienne has seen those internet posts about how mermaids are supposed to look depending on the part of sea they evolve in, including a frankly terrifying deep-sea version with glassy eyes and transparent skin and an anglerfish bait dangling from her forehead. She remembers liking that version best. Would it not be grand to have a society of sentient anglerfish in the parts of the sea that humanity has yet to brave?

She can’t help but feel a little crestfallen at her discovery. This merman is no anglerfish. He looks like he flopped out of a TV show aimed at teenage girls, all toned muscles and lovely face and jawline that surely can’t be so sharp without a whetstone handy. Even the damp, golden curls of his hair are artfully arranged to dramatic effect.

“Leave me be,” he says, hoarse. Sharp lines of teeth are visible as he speaks.

Brienne frowns. He doesn’t sound like someone who wants to be left alone to bask in the meager sunlight. He sounds like he wants to be left to die. She asks, “Will you be able to get back into the sea by yourself?”

He smiles a terrible smile, displaying the teeth in a way that has got to be intentional. “I’m afraid I’ve been banished from the sea. To return would mean my death.”

There are so many questions Brienne wants to ask, chief of them all _ how are merfolk even a real thing and we never found out, _ but she knows she has little time. The sky is growing brighter, and soon the beachfront shops will open and the peddlers will arrive, and then the tourists, and then who knows what will happen to this merman. So, Brienne’s brain does what it does best when it is overwhelmed: shift gears, act first, ask later.

She gets one arm under the merman—“What are you _ doing? _”—and hoists him up, one hand under his shoulders and another under his tail. “Stop this at once,” he demands, but she ignores him just like how she ignores the sting of sand and seawater on the abrasion caused by his sandpaper skin scraping her arm.

“Let go of me, _ wench, _” he says through gritted teeth as she begins to walk home.

That, of all things, made her snort. “Wench? Which century are you from? No one uses that word these days.”

“We don’t keep human years,” he says, as he wriggles in her grasp. It does nothing but hurt her arm further, but she keeps her grip steady.

“But you have a calendar?”

“Of course. We’re not savages. We count the faces of the moon and the turn of days, and we divide our civilization into Before Plastic and After Plastic.” He’s given up trying to escape, now, instead going limp and trying to make himself as dead of a weight as possible for her. This doesn’t deter her. She can bench twice his weight.

Brienne isn’t sure if she should laugh or be horrified. She’s leaning towards the latter. “You’re joking.”

“Maybe a little, but your clever invention changes everything in our life. Some of us try to make the best out of it, repurposing your trash. A small number think you’re actively waging war against us. Most of us just think you’re idiots. Though,” he pauses, peering at her trusty hemp bag and trash picker, “some of you do try your best to minimize, if not undo, the damage, despite the futility of it. I’m pretty sure that makes you the biggest idiot of all.”

“I don’t know,” Brienne says. “I’d say I broke my personal trash-picking record today.”

He barks out a laugh. “Ah, yes. After all, no plastic bag will make you rich like I will.”

Brienne stops in her tracks and tries to meet his eyes. He has his head lolling back and eyes closed shut, refusing to look at her. He opens his eyes, slowly, almost in a leisurely manner, and lifts his head a bit, raising an eyebrow as if to ask _ what? _

She says, “I’m not selling you. I’m taking you home, where I have a tub you can soak in before the sun dries you up.”

He flops back down. “I was looking forward to that,” he mumbles, forlorn.

“You were looking forward to death. You do realize that just because you can’t go to the sea, you can still live.”

“And do what? Sit in your tub, be carted around in a tank, sip water from a plastic bottle through a plastic straw?” His mouth twists at the image he himself described. “Yes, that would make an exciting life.”

He has a point. The land is not where he belongs. She has no answer for him, so she stays silent and continues walking.

“I see I’ve rendered you tongue-tied, wench. And yet, you still haven’t put me down.”

Brienne says, “I can’t let you die.”

“You humans can’t let anything be. You must take and take and take, leaving pollution in your wake.” He sneers. His eyes no longer resemble sea glass. Under the furrowed brows, they are an endless depth, promising doom should one tries to challenge it. “Tell me, what good is it for me if you take me now?”

There’s no if. Brienne is already taking him. He has stopped fighting, possibly thinking that dying is not worth the effort to overpower her. She says, “We’ll figure it out.” She knows it’s a weak promise. An empty thing. She latches on to it anyway.

He sits up, frowning at her. The eye contact lingers a little too long for comfort. “Did you just use the word _ we _?” he demands.

Brienne frowns. “Yes?” There’s him, dead or worse if she leaves him alone, and there’s her, always doggedly trying to make a difference or save the wildlife, which now somehow includes a very mouthy shark.

“You’re a very stubborn wench.”

“I told you, that word is outdated by at least a century.”

He exhales as though he’s the one who has been carrying her and not the other way around. She watches his gills flutter as he does so. He says, “Do as you will, then,” and closes his eyes. But this time he doesn’t fall back, limp. Instead, he tucks his head under her chin and his face into her skin. Avoiding the sunlight, probably.

Brienne walks.

Usually, she relishes the way her feet sink into the loose dry sand away from the waterline, but now it only slows her down. The merman doesn’t utter a word of protest, but she feels his breaths growing shallower against her chest, and she knows he needs water, and soon. She can’t get her bottle without putting him down, and how much help would a bottle of water be for a landbound merman anyway? She tries to walk faster, as much as she can do it without jostling him. Every step shifts his tail a little and scrapes her arm further. Her arms are growing numb under his weight. She is strong, but she’s never carried someone for so long, and his weight slows her pace.

Sweat beads on her temple, wets her armpits, drips from her neck to trickle between her breasts and form a swamp along her bra chest band. She has no doubt she looks like some grotesque, blotchy monster, carrying a half-man, half-shark, leaving a trail of kelp behind her.

She steps on a wooden walkway, one that leads to her cottage and then the main road. Her ancestors used to own the island, a few centuries ago. All that’s left for her is the name, this small plot of land, and the inherited determination to hold on to it like a barnacle on a ship hull. The cottage is right on the end of the tourist site. Beyond is the fishing village. Brienne gets along with them more than the tourists, if only because she doesn’t have to clean up after the fishermen.

The washed-out picket fence is never locked, these days. She nudges it with her legs, and it swings open. She enters the yard and comes face-to-face with her locked front door, which stands guard against burglars, thieves, and any madwoman who dares to try to use her bathtub for merfolk resuscitation.

She’d forgotten about the door. “Fuck.”

“I’d love to,” he mumbles, “but you’ll have to do most of the work. ‘m a bit tired at the moment.”

Brienne exhales in relief. “You’re awake. Can you hold on a little? I need to unlock the door.”

His arms are shaking, but they manage to loop around her shoulders, holding on as she lets go of his back to get her keys from her jeans pocket. It’s sheer luck that she hadn’t put them in the other pocket, or carried him the other way around, because then she’d have to put him down and pick him up again. She’s not sure she can do that, given how her entire upper body feels at the moment.

She unlocks the door and opens it with one hand. The motions are so familiar she could almost be carrying grocery bags instead of a beautiful, dying mythical creature. The moment her arms come under his back again, he sags against her and lets his arms drop. She is careful not to bump his tail on the doorframe. Luckily, this house was built for people even larger than she is.

She doesn’t bother taking off her shoes or closing the door behind her. Instead, she goes to the master bedroom, jostling him a little as she opens the door without letting go of him, and the bathroom attached to it.

Brienne ignores the motes of dust flying in the sunbeam. She ignores the untouched toiletries. She ignores the water stains on the floor.

None of that matters. What matters is that the tub is big enough for him. She eases him into the tub and opens the tap. The water that comes out is yellowish, old, but soon it clears. It’s groundwater, which in this area means a brackish taste, but he probably prefers something close to seawater anyway. She makes him lean forward so she can plug the tub. As the water begins to pool, his breaths even out, steady, and now that she's finally relieved of her burden, Brienne feels the fatigue crashing into her.

Brienne grabs hold of the sink and leans there, breathing heavily. She walks to the kitchen and pours herself a tall glass of boiled water, drains it, and pours herself another. She brings it back to the bathroom and sets it on the sink before rummaging inside the medicine cabinet for gauze and antiseptic. Her arm is demanding her attention, now that her mission is accomplished.

She has the gauze and antiseptic sitting next to her glass before she places her abraded skin under running tap water. Her entire forearm and part of her upper arm is covered in sand and myriad cuts. She’s not quite flayed, but only just. She convinces herself that it looks and feels worse than it actually is.

Her pain receptors disagree. When she pours half the antiseptic bottle onto the red patch, she sucks in a breath through her teeth.

“Sorry about that.”

Brienne turns her head. The merman is watching her with bleary eyes, but he looks slightly better. There’s more light in his eyes, anyway. She moves to sit on the toilet next to the tub, bringing the gauze with her. “You can’t help what you are.”

“No,” he agrees. “Just as I can’t help what I’m becoming.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, but she sees it: his teeth are turning blunt as he speaks. His gills are closing, then vanishing as if they’ve never been there. The webbing between his fingers recede. His tail splits, his skin smooths out, his—_ huh. _

Brienne looks away.

There’s a warmth seeping up her skin that has nothing to do with the summer heat or the strenuous exercise from which she’s cooling down. She asks, as casually as possible with her face still turned toward the door, “Why are you turning into a human?”

There’s a long pause, and then, “You saved me.”

Brienne turns back to him, keeping her eyes strictly on his face. “I don’t understand,” she says.

“The curse of banishment is an old one. If I ever touch the sea again, I will turn into seafoam. If no one tries to save me, I will dissolve into sand and become one with the beach. If someone does, though, as you did, I will become one of them. One of you.” His voice is flat, as if he’s merely reporting the weather. As if his fate hadn’t been a coin toss between dying or being changed forever.

Brienne wonders what will happen if she is forced to leave the island and never return. She will still be herself, mostly, but the exodus will also leave a mark on her, a scar where her last tether to her upbringing used to be. “I’m sorry,” she says, earnestly.

He laughs, mirthless, an ugly thing. “No, you’re not.” He shivers. “Look at you. You’re pleased because you know I would have died if you hadn’t brought me to your shack.” His eyes are accusing, but his shivers become stronger, his teeth chattering, lips turning blue.

Jumping to her feet, Brienne asks, “Are you okay?”

“It’s—very cold.”

She feels his skin. They are the same kind of clammy he’d been before, but then he’d also been part shark. This temperature is nowhere near acceptable for a mammal’s hot-blooded system. “Get out of that tub,” she says, placing her hands under his armpits and pulling him. He’s almost a dead weight, his feet scrabbling under him, not atrophied yet still useless. She manages to sit him down on the toilet, and with a wide dusty towel off the nearest rack, she dries him off. She tries not to think about how long the towel has been there.

When he’s sufficiently dry, she carries him again and drops him onto the bed, a thin cloud of dust flying off the surface as his body falls. She gets him under the covers. “Stay there for a moment.”

She doesn’t wait for whatever jab he might pathetically try to deliver through chattering teeth, instead ducking out and getting an electric pillow out of her own room. She returns, plugging it in on the outlet next to the bed and makes him hug the pillow. He practically curls around it like a cat.

Brienne then strips herself down to a sports bra and boy shorts before getting under the covers and wrapping him in her arms from behind. Their bodies align uncannily. She’s a little bit taller than him, but not by much. Her knees are tucked behind his knees, her calves are entangled with his. The curve of his back nestles into the curve of her torso.

It's dry and warm under the covers, but he is cool to the touch, goosebumps covering his arms and shoulders. His teeth stop chattering, but every breath is a hiss, his body shaking at the effort. She pulls him tighter to her chest, snaking her arms to wrap across his front. He doesn’t fight it.

Brienne stays quiet. What can she say? She would promise him the wonders of living as a human, but she hasn’t experienced any in a long time. She’s been moving through the motions of her own life, not out of contentment, but out of fear. What can she offer to him? What can possibly make up for the robbery of his being?

He stirs in her arms, and Brienne jolts. She must have dozed, in and out, but now she’s aware of the stifling heat of a summer day, the sticky dampness of sweat between their limbs. She’s aware, too, of her state of undress, and his complete nudity.

He doesn’t seem perturbed, rolling so he faces her, the heated pillow between their middles—a relief, a taunt—and the sea glass eyes searching her face. His hair is dry, a bright halo around his face, but light golden wisps stick to his sweaty temples. His skin is flushed, lips no longer tinted blue. They move, forming words, but she doesn’t catch them.

She blinks forcefully, scrunching her eyelids shut before opening them again, a yawn escaping her mouth. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asks, feigning dignity though there’s none to be found in this situation.

“I said, why did you save me?”

Brienne needs space. That close, her breath mingles with his, and it is an odd, heady feeling, one she doesn’t need to experience when faced with a completely legitimate question. She rolls onto her back, keeping her eyes trained on the stationary ceiling fan and the cobwebs dangling from it. Why, indeed? She resorts to an easier answer: “Because if you had wanted to truly die, you would have dragged your way back to the sea.”

He tugs on her arm, so she turns her head back to him. There’s an urgency and perhaps a little bit of anger in his eyes. “You didn’t know that. You saw an unconscious merman, and you could have sold me to your dreaded aquariums or left me there for someone else to find, but you brought me to your home. Why?”

“What kind of person would I be if I’d done that?”

He looks disbelieving. “A sane one.”

“Does sanity mean selfishness, for merfolk?”

“Doesn’t it, even among humans?”

Brienne falls silent. Years ago, she would be able to surely give an optimistic answer on the nature of humanity, but now she isn’t so sure. Surely, if people aren’t selfish, she wouldn’t need to clean up after them every morning. Surely, they would wait for a few days after her father’s death before they tried to buy the house. That’s a dangerous line of thought. “It doesn’t matter,” Brienne says. “I’m sorry you had to go through all this. I’m sorry you lost your merfolk body. I’m sorry your people cast you away. But I’m not sorry that I didn’t let you die, and even if I am, there’s nothing to do now but deal with it.”

“Deal with me, you mean.”

“Like I deal with everything else that happens because of me.” Like when she tried to save a drowning child, only for the current to take her under, and Galladon—no, think of something else, don’t think of Dad, don’t think about this room, don’t—

He cuts across her thoughts, saying, “I don’t even know how to be a human.”

That earns a laugh from her. “Don’t worry about that. Most of us don’t know that either.”

“What about you?”

His gaze is like fire, or maybe it’s the heat. She’d kick the covers off them if it didn’t mean exposing her half-nudity and his full nudity to them both. “I’m hardly a typical case of humanity.”

He smiles, teasing. “I know that already.”

“I collect trash in the morning. I take it to the recycling centre, then I have lunch nearby, and then work from home in the afternoon.”

He adjusts himself, and somehow he has managed to sprawl almost entirely on top of her, resting his head on her shoulder, his gaze fixed on her. “What work?” he asks, and he sounds like he _ cares. _

Despite herself, she finds herself longing for his approval. The heat must be getting to her head. “I write children’s stories. Like ones about mermaids. And mermen, sometimes.”

His smile grows smug at that. “You write stories about me.”

She shoves him, regretting it when his bare skin brands her palm. “Not you, specifically. Besides, they’re all make-believe.”

He lets himself be shoved, yet as sure as a wave he chases the shore of her touch again. “And?”

“And, what?”

“You pick up trash, you eat, you work. Is that all? What about your friends? Your family?”

_ My mother died birthing me. My brother drowned to death. My father died of heartbreak. _ Shame creeps up her face, warm. She can’t fathom why. She’s talking to an exile. The sorrow of loss cannot be more embarrassing than banishment. “There’s just me.” 

“Not anymore. We decided you would deal with me. Considering I can’t even stand yet, much less walk...” he trails away, leaving the implications and all they entail unsaid, but palpable.

Already, Brienne knows this merman will be the death of her, but he also will make a little noise in this too-quiet cottage. She smiles. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Of course I am,” he says, mocking. “And since we will have to endure each other’s company from now on, I should like to know what to call you.”

“I’m—Brienne.”

“Good morrow, Brienne,” he says, taking her hand, the one not currently pinned under a hot electric pillow and his weight. “My name is Jaime.” He then brushes his lips over her knuckles, like a knight of yore might have done to a lady. His eyes, bright green, catch the light, but his pupils widen, and all Brienne can think of is wildfire over black water, bright and all-consuming.

She needs to get away, lest it burns her too.

Kicking the covers away and ignoring the cloud of disturbed dust, she pulls herself away from him, rolling to her side and sitting on the edge of the bed. He stares out the small window, the meagre view of some sand and grass beyond the layer of dust. Maybe if he’s out of her sight, he will be less real.

Maybe if she doesn’t look into the fire, it won’t incinerate her.

Brienne feels the bed shift, then she feels him leaning his forehead on the nape of her neck, his cool breath washing over her spine as Jaime says, “Please don’t deny me your eyes. I’ve been denied one ocean already.”

She would reproach him for saying such a thing, if she didn't understand the sorrow of being unable to return to sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime's shark is loosely based on the [sand tiger shark.](https://www.sharks.org/sand-tiger-shark-carcharias-taurus) And [this is what Brienne thinks mermaids should look like.](https://www.buzzfeed.com/clairedelouraille/ariel-reimagined) Note the deep sea version. That's the one she likes best.
> 
> This fic is absolutely 100% soft fantasy. Expect no thorough lore-building. Instead, there will be feeeeeeliiiiiiings.


	2. Attempting Verticality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime reminisces in between new experiences as a human and attempts to stand and walk with his new legs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning at the end notes; click through to check.
> 
> My thanks to slipsthrufingers, Luthien, and ImberReader for their support, both technical with my wonky grammar and emotional with how much this chapter is. Title from Luthien's description of a particularly tough morning.
> 
> This chapter is A Lot. There's a lot of words and a lot of feelings. I hope you enjoy them.

The tale of their origin is passed down from one generation of merfolk to the next, and with it, the grudge follows.

But Jaime heard it not from his father. Proud and grieving, Lord Tywin refused to talk of follies past. Instead, little Tyrion would tell Jaime the story he’d gleaned from Uncle Gerion and Aunt Genna, when they took him to swim in the shallows on days Cersei was cruel.

The story goes like this:  _ Long ago, there were seven kingdoms on the land, each led by six kings and a princess. But there was an island where dragons roamed free among the humans, and the lord of that island was a jealous one. He and his sister-wives set out to make the seven kingdoms his. At first, the lord thought of razing the earth with his dragon-fire, but the older sister-wife was wicked and cunning, with powers of sorcery and dark magics, and so she told him there was another way. _

_ She told him to hold a ball. _

_ The lord said, how clever you are, wife! We will close the door and then slaughter them. _

_ The wicked sister-wife smiled and said, oh, but we will not. _

“Did they?” Jaime asked Tyrion. Tyrion smiled knowingly. Jaime often had no patience for the smugness of storytellers, but his little brother so rarely had a reason to smile, and so Jaime leaned back and waited.

* * *

When Jaime wakes, Tyrion’s smile stays in his mind. Tyrion often smiled as though he knew more than anyone else in the room, and to be fair, he probably did. He inherited Uncle Gerion’s desire to learn, more than Jaime did. Jaime liked stories well enough, though he preferred those of the sea, where he could easily replace the hero with an image of himself.

Tyrion, however, longed for the land.

He never said so directly, for fear of their father’s wrath, but Jaime knew. Jaime saw the tomes Tyrion kept, the ones he and Uncle Gerion enchanted so the thin pages stayed intact even in water. They hid it, and hid it well.

Father found it anyway.

“Jaime?” Brienne calls from behind the door. “Are you up?”

Briefly, Jaime considers staying still to postpone the inevitable lessons on walking, but the sheets are sticking to his back and the day promises to get hotter. Humans, he learned early on, leak water out of their skin to cool their body down when their surroundings are too hot for them. It’s merely one oddity among many, at this point—and he’s only been on land for three days. He sits up and peels off his t-shirt, too. Why humans insist on wearing so many garments on them in this weather, he will never understand. He calls out, "I'm awake."

Brienne opens the door, rolling her eyes at him. "Why can't you just wear a shirt?"

"Sticky."

Brienne huffs, but instead of throwing a fresh shirt at him, she asks, “Hungry? I made breakfast.”

He is. He clumsily hoists himself onto the wheelchair next to the bed, bends down to unlock the brakes, and begins to wheel himself out to the kitchen. It had taken him several hours to get used to it, but now he knows how to roll the wheels, how to make a turn. “I saw something in my sleep,” he says to Brienne, who is busying herself with making sure that the path is clear for him. How silly. She’s made sure of that yesterday, and the day before.

Brienne looks up from the one dining chair that will surely bring his downfall should it stay where it is. “You had a dream?”

“Is that what dreams are?” The first time he fell asleep, Jaime thought he was dying. Merfolk don’t sleep. They take rests where they stay in place and their mind goes quiet, but they never lose consciousness as thoroughly as humans do. And now he finds out that humans also see things in their sleep—another distraction from being aware of their surroundings. It’s a wonder they can survive for so long, considering how vulnerable they are for hours every day.

“It’s too early and too hot to muse about what dreams really are, but if you saw something in your sleep, then I think that counts as a dream, yeah.” Brienne places a plate that smells something wonderful, rich and warm and still unusual to him, on the table, in front of an empty space where Jaime docks his chair.

“Hmm,” he responds. He’s not sure he  _ likes  _ dreaming, but he isn’t about to say that, because then Brienne will ask, and he so hates lying to her. He turns his attention to the plate: two slices of toasted bread, same as yesterday. Two strips of thin, reddish things, slightly different from each other. Small red round things. And eggs, though scrambled this time. Yesterday, Brienne had made them ‘sunny side up’ for him and scrambled for herself, and upon tasting her eggs, he demanded scrambled for today. “You remembered.”

“What? Oh, the eggs? Of course I do. It’s easier to cook them all the same, anyway.” Her own eggs are scrambled, too, today. It must be how she prefers them. She points at the unknowns on his plate. “These are bacon. Not sure how you’d like them, so I did one crispier than the other. They’re meat, basically. And these are cherry tomatoes. Fruits. Kind of.”

Jaime takes the stiffer strip of bacon and bites it. It breaks apart in his mouth with a crunch, and a richness spreads on his tongue. It’s wonderful, and saltier than the fare Brienne’s been feeding him, though not enough. He reaches for the table salt and sprinkles it generously over the bacon.

“Really, Jaime?” Brienne asks.

“I don’t understand why your foods are so terribly bland,” he says. He picks up the fork and uses it to break apart a little of the scrambled egg to taste it. Wrinkling his nose, he sprinkles more salt on that, too.

“You’re going to get high blood pressure one of these days. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“From your tone, I assume that’s a bad thing?” Ah, yes. That’s the right amount of salt. Brienne would swear that it’s inedible, but Jaime’s merfolk, and their kind drinks seawater every single day.

Brienne places a glass of offensively plain water in front of him. “Drink your water.”

“No juice?” he whines, though he drinks it all anyway in one go. Brienne fills the glass again, and Jaime downs it immediately. He has no clue why every meal leaves his mouth so dry and parched.

“Not until after we do today’s exercise.”

Dread climbs up Jaime’s spine. Standing up and putting weight on his feet is an excruciating experience. Brienne has obtained a metal frame she calls a walker for these exercises, though he can’t help but feel the poor thing doesn’t fulfill its preordained purpose. They might as well call it a two-second stander.

Brienne must have noticed something in his expression, because her eyes soften. “Don’t worry. I have an idea for today.”

“Yes, very reassuring.”

“Don’t be glib.” She grins, suddenly, teeth flashing. Her eyes, so bright, so deep, nearly sparkle under the sunlight. Daytimes are dangerous this way. “How would you like to go to a pool?”

A pool is where humans go to swim, except it’s a structure completely separate to any body of water. It’s a place where Jaime can swim without violating the terms of his banishment, without being in danger of turning to seafoam. The water will hold some of his weight, or so Brienne says, so it might be easier to stand and walk in there.

Brienne loads him, his chair, and a bag of towels and change of clothing into her vehicle. It’s a red banged-up thing on giant black wheels. They keep the windows down, letting the wind card through their hair. Brienne puts on some music. He doesn’t know what kind, except it makes his heart thump in time. Before long, he finds himself humming along as Brienne sings the words, her voice deep and resonant. He can barely make out the lyrics, lulled as he is.

He wonders if this is how mortal sailors feel, when his sister sings them to their doom.

* * *

_ They held the ball, and it was wonderful indeed! The older sister-wife had placed twinkling lights under the ceiling, and it was almost as if the feast were served under the night sky. The younger sister-wife sang for the six kings and one princess, and they danced until they laughed. For once, the seven monarchs cared not for petty rivalries. Peace treaties were signed over wine; trade agreements made over a turn about the room. _

_ So the ball lasted for seven days and seven nights, and by the end of it, they were sorry to leave the island. But duty beckoned, and so they unfurled their sails, heraldries rippling in the wind, and returned to their kingdoms. _

* * *

Long ago, Tywin Lannister took his children to a human structure by the bay. The water was warm, there, even in autumn. They had to stop a ways away, before it scalded them like it did the white skeleton of corals beyond. The children peered out of the water, just a little, and ducked back inside when the smell shriveled their gills.

“Father,” Cersei hissed. Her hair rippled around her head as her entire body shook. “What was that?”

“Mankind,” Tywin said. “Look there.” He pointed at a tall tower, something dark grey floating from it. “That’s called smoke. It dirties their air and makes them sick. See how they care not for their own.”

Tyrion, small and young, too young, skittered in place, his tail swishing back and forth. “But Uncle Gerion—”

“Gods, you’re stupid,” Cersei snapped. “If humans were willing to make their own people sick for this structure—”

“A factory,” Tyrion said. “It’s where they make things. Uncle Gerion told me.”

“Did he,” Father said, though his voice was flat, as though he wasn’t particularly interested in the answer.

“Much good that knowledge will do him.” Cersei flicked her hair away from her face, her nose wrinkling in irritation. The hot water current curled around them, mixing into the seawater in small eddies that were nearly visible to their eyes, pulling their hair up and around and front and back. “He’s dead, you imp. Go ahead and chase him to land, if you could stand the smell.”

Tyrion’s face, small and flattened and ugly, crumpled in despair. Jaime put his arm around his little brother, cradling him to his chest as they swam back home. The stench stuck to them, days after—or at least that’s how Jaime remembers it.

It’s that same stench that drags Jaime out of his doze. There must be a factory nearby. “What kind of things do they make at the factory?” he asks Brienne, though his words are slurred with sleep.

“Factory? What factory?”

“The one near here. I can smell it in the air.”

Brienne pauses. Sniffs. “I don’t smell anything. What kind of smell?”

Jaime thinks of how he can describe it, and finds everything he can think of lacking. He tries anyway, saying, “It smells like dead corals. Bile and acid. Do you truly not feel it?” It gets stronger, as he speaks, as though he summons it with every word.

“Oh,” Brienne says. “You must mean the chlorine. It’s a substance they put in the pool to keep it clean.”

It doesn’t smell like anything clean, to Jaime. The skin along his arms and on the back of his neck rise in small bumps. A shiver follows.

Brienne makes a turn, towards a wide building with an erstwhile-colourful signage, now washed out and rusted. She glances at Jaime. “Are you okay? Is the smell too much for you?”

Jaime nearly chokes out a “yes” when he hears a splash, followed by a shriek of laughter. “I’m fine,” he says instead, ignoring the warnings crawling up his spine. He thinks instead of water lapping around him, cradling his weight. A comfort he has nearly forgotten, as though he’d left the memory in his old body. He wants to remember. The smell is a small price for that.

“If you’re sure,” Brienne says. “If it gets too much, tell me, okay?”

How selfless. How noble. Even this morning, before Jaime woke, she had gone to pick up trash again. Jaime saw the bag on the way out of the house. She hadn’t delivered it to the recycling centre as she would have done before he washed ashore. Instead, she came home and cooked breakfast for him.

Brienne reaches out to touch his arm. Something about it felt like pity, and so he bats her hand away. She pulls it back, her mouth falling open slightly. Surprise, maybe, or hurt. Gods, but her lips are thick like a grouper’s. He wonders if it’s a desirable trait, among humans.

He looks away. He doesn’t need to get sucked into the tempest of her eyes again. “I told you I’m fine, wench. You needn’t fuss over me as if I’m your child, just because you have no family of your own.”

“All right,” she says evenly, and just like that the regret catches up with him. He turns to her, a light comment at the ready, but she avoids his gaze as she unlatches her seatbelt and opens the door. Even when she helps him get on his chair, she turns her eyes away from him, her mouth drawn in that determined line he last saw when she carried him to her home.

She doesn’t try to push his chair, instead walking ahead of him. He follows, wheeling himself towards the stench. His eyes water. His breathing is shallow, and he dares not inhale through his nose. She doesn’t turn, but her stride is slow, measured. That, above all else, twists the knot in his stomach.

They enter the building, but instead of heading out into the sun and joining the splashing water and shrieking laughter, Brienne gestures him towards a door. There, an old man with a barrel chest is waiting for them.

“Little Brienne!” he booms. His face is sunburnt, sun-dried. Lines on the edges of his eyes and around his mouth. Unlike the many people Jaime saw in passing during their drive here, this man looks most like a sailor.

“Hello, Goodwin,” Brienne says, allowing herself to be swept into an embrace. “Thanks for lending me the pool.”

“No problem, lassie. Haven’t seen you in months,” Goodwin says. He peers at Brienne, half-reproach, half-concern. “You still keeping up with your training?”

Brienne shuffles her feet, stuttering, “I’ve—well, you see, I’ve been busy—”

Jaime rolls himself closer. “Good day. I’m Jaime,” he says, nodding at Goodwin.

“Of course you are.” Goodwin spares a nod at Jaime, but otherwise keeps his eyes on Brienne. “All this time, and this is what brings you back, lassie? He’s pretty enough, but you’re not a therapist now, are you?”

Brienne steps in front of Jaime and stares the old man down. “Are you going to let us use the pool, or not?”

Goodwin stands immutable until suddenly his shoulders fall. “Aye, lass, I’ll let you use the pool. I made my promise. I’m just worried. You staying on your own, and been slack with your training, too.” He stands aside, opening the door. “I’ll be in my office if you want to talk.”

The door leads to a wide, empty room with a rectangular hole in the middle of it, filled with bluish water—the pool. Jaime can’t tell if the colour comes from the chlorine, the tiles lining the sides and bottom of it, or if it is a natural thing like how everything is blue-green in the sea.

Despite the hue, though, this is nothing like the sea. Overhead is the ceiling, the walls high with windows letting the light in to dance on the rippling surface. In one corner of the pool is a pair of metal railings, placed parallel to one another with a gap that will allow a person to stand between them. In the opposite corner is a ladder descending into the pool. The rest of the pool is open, though there’s still not much space to swim freely.

The laughter and splashes from the other pool, the one he’s yet to see, are merely echoes here. The air is still, lying in wait. The stench hangs heavy around them, but just as still—if Jaime keeps his breaths shallow, he can pretend it isn’t seeping into him the way the poisonous warm water by that human factory had, long ago.

Brienne strips down to a tight-fitting red outfit that goes up her neck yet leaves her arms and legs bare. Among the cool white of the room and the blue of the water, she is a single bloom of anemone on an otherwise barren seabed. Though the outfit conceals more skin than when she held him in bed to warm his body, it hides none of her features. Wrapped by the fabric is her lean, functional torso. Jaime has seen humans, has seen the curves some women carry with them. Brienne has none of that. There’s the wide shoulders, there’s the slightest narrowing by her waist, there’s the straight line of her hip and legs. And strength, throughout her frame. In her arms, that carried him all the way to her home. In the scabs that are beginning to peel where he wounded her. In her legs, thick and solid like sail masts. All over, she’s dotted. A pattern. He had one, too, on his old tail.

And there’s her face, russet as if to match her clothes. Brienne’s no octopus, but she does change colours, to a limited degree. Her eyes are furious, dark. “What?” she asks—accuses.

He has half a mind to ask about Goodwin, but instead he says, “It suits you. Or rather, you suit the outfit.” He flashes her a disingenuous grin, and from the way she immediately turns away to fold her discarded clothes, he knows that he’s won whatever game they’re playing. In any case, the less she looks at him, the less likely it is that she will notice his shallow breathing and the sweat weeping out of his temples. His mouth tastes of bile. Is it the chlorine, or his unsettled stomach?

“It stands out. Blues and greens blend into the water, and then no one can find you even when you want to be found,” she says to her bag.

At sea, maybe. This pool is too small to hide anyone, least of all someone of Brienne’s size. And yet, the practicality of her statement takes away some of his nausea. Brienne plans and prepares. Jaime will not perish so long as she is with him.

Jaime is already wearing nothing but a pair of board shorts, fished out of a wardrobe in the room he occupies, the strings pulled tight to keep them in place. Brienne claims it sufficient to wear at the pool, though the only difference Jaime can divine between this and the soft pants he already wears every day is that this is scratchier and flashier, with a strip of unnatural green-yellow on either side of it.

She bends down with her arms reaching towards him, and by a three-day-old habit, he reaches up and wraps his own around her shoulders, surrendering himself to her. Carefully, she puts an arm under his knees, hoisting him up, and at last she carries him to the pool and down the stairs. When she is waist-deep, the warm water wraps around his ankle. He could weep. Oh, he bathes in her tub, but there’s something primal inside him that sings now, despite the smallness of the pool and the stench emanating from it.

Another step down. Then another. Then, she lets him go, gently, gently, and he is standing in the water.

He’s submerged up to his collarbones. She peels his arm off her shoulders, letting him clutch on her forearms instead. He waits for the pain to stab his soles, but there’s none. Merely a pressure, uncomfortable but bearable. There’s a lightness to his body as the water presses onto him, supporting him from every direction.

He looks up. Brienne’s gaze searches him, a lighthouse in the dark. “How is it?” she asks, though she knows. He knows she knows.

There’s too little room between them for levity, so he says, “It doesn’t hurt.”

For a moment, Brienne sighs, and Jaime can swear she is slack in his arms, clinging to him—but then he blinks, and she is still standing strong, supporting part of his weight. Her lips quirk into a smile. “Let’s see if you can stand without holding on to me?” she says, and when his hands tighten around her arms, she adds, “I’m not going anywhere, Jaime. I’ll catch you if you start falling. Come on. Any time you’re ready.”

He lets go, then, though his hands still hover over her arms. They both wait with bated breath, but then he pulls his arms away, letting them half-float on either side of his body.

Brienne takes a step back and away from him. There’s a challenge in her grin, a taunt in her extended arms. He takes one step forward and nearly tips himself face first into the water. But the buoyancy is forgiving—he catches himself, arms held aloft, and he manages to stand again.

So he takes one step after another, Brienne’s arms bracketing the space in front of him, just in case. He stays mostly upright, save for a little swaying forward and backward, though his movements are glacial. She’s quiet, making no platitudes to encourage him, merely timing his steps with hers.

They’ve almost reached the other side when Jaime’s foot suddenly loses purchase on the tile—there’s a slippery spot, and down he goes—except Brienne quickly grabs him under the arms, pulling him up, causing his forward momentum to bring him crashing into her body instead. She’s solid, unyielding, but there’s laughter in her voice when she says, “Whoa there. Are you okay?”

“Yes.” And then, “Brienne.”

“Mm?” The hum travels through her chest, and he feels it too, pressed to her. He shivers. How odd. The water is warm.

“I walked.” Once more, because he can’t believe himself: “Brienne, I just walked.”

“Welcome to Using Your Legs 101,” she says.

“One-oh-one?”

“It’s a human term. I’ll, ah, I’ll explain later,” she says, her face shifting colours again as she gently disentangles herself from him. Her back is pressed to the edge of the pool, now, and with one fluid motion she pushes herself to sit on the ledge, her legs kicking at the water. “I promised you some juice, didn’t I?”

“You said after practice, so does this mean we’re done?” He hopes they are. He’s a little dizzy. The smell, the excitement. The warmth of the water, somehow lacking.

Brienne checks her wristwatch. “We’ve only been ten minutes. How about I get you a juice from the vending machine outside, then we try to walk the length of the pool at least once more?”

She’s excited, that much is clear. They’ve gone two days without him being able to stand, and suddenly he can walk without her assistance. It would be selfish to rob her of her accomplishment just because it’s a little smelly here. “I want something I’ve never tried,” he says. “You bring me apple or orange and I won’t take the deal.”

“Choosy,” she says, rolling her eyes, but she wraps a towel around her waist and leaves the room, the heavy door slamming behind her.

He’s alone. Leaning on the edge of the pool, he watches the way the water reflects light on the ceiling and walls. He catches himself just as he nearly nods face-first into the water. What is it Brienne does when she’s nodding off? He’s only been staying with her for three days, and already he knows her routines, for she’s a creature of habit. When she is tired, she drinks that vile thing she calls coffee—not an option. She takes a shower—he’s already in water.

She does light exercises.

That’s… not a terrible idea, really. He did walk without her assistance just now. And imagine what her face will look like when she finds him on the opposite side of the pool upon returning. She would be so very angry. She would be so very proud. She might even turn puce. Her camouflage repertoire would improve, if he manages to turn her a colour she hadn’t worn before.

Imagine her iridescent as a squid.

Is he delirious? He might be. He chuckles as he takes one step towards the edge with the ramp. Slowly, slowly. No need to rush. Or maybe he should. The effect of his surprise will be ruined if he’s only two steps away from the edge.

And then his foot meets another slippery spot.

* * *

_ Five kings and one princess sailed, each in their gilded ships, and unbeknownst to them, the older sister-wife had set a trap. A cantrip, on the heels of their shoes, when they danced in the halls of the castle. A spell, in each morsel of food they swallowed. A curse, mixed into the wine. For when the six kings and one princess set foot on their land, they and their kin should all transform, and their thrones should be empty forevermore. _

_ And then the dragon lord would be free to rule the land. _

“You said five kings and one princess sailed,” Jaime said.

“So I did,” Tyrion answered.

“Then what happened to the one?”

_ The King of the Rock was cunning and untrusting, so when all his equals had left, he turned to the dragon lord and his sister-wives and demanded the truth. When they persisted in their lies, he called the older sister-wife a witch, the younger one a broodmare, and the lord—why, the King of the Rock called the lord a coward. _

_ But the dragons were as full of deceit as they were of wrath, and so their smiles never wavered until the king set sail, the last one to leave their harbour. _

_ Then, the older sister-wife called a storm down on the king’s ship. The King of the Rock watched his ship split into splinters and his kin taken by the water. He cried and begged, and in her spite the older sister-wife turned their legs to tails, split the skin of their necks and pulled webs between their fingers. And so the King and his kin lived a cursed life. They would reign over the seas, but never would they walk the lands, nor see their golden palace again. _

* * *

It burns inside his chest. He can’t breathe—he tries, but there’s something blocking his airway. He can’t feel his gills. He doesn’t have gills any more, he suddenly remembers, and therein lies the problem. What did Tyrion say, long ago? The King of the Rock… something about hubris, and how he’d doomed all in his line.

Someone’s pumping his chest, and she—she?—hums a song as she does so, every press a beat in the song. Water drops on his face, but that part is off-tempo. The droplets don’t smell like bile, unlike everything else. Does he know this person? He can’t remember her, but he trusts her with—what, what is it that he trusts her with?

There’s a pressure building in him, and then he feels the water climb up his throat, and—

Jaime coughs and sputters and vomits water. His lungs still burn, his throat too, and between his legs he feels the growing warmth of him relieving himself.

She rolls his body sideways and gently eases more water out of him. He barely notices the stench, the burning in him overcoming all else. She no longer hums. She sobs, but he can make out words in between:  _ come on, come on, please. _

He opens his mouth to say something blithe to her but what comes out is his breakfast and bile.

“Come now, lass,” someone else says. “I’ve got a cot and a blanket at first aid. Someone else’ll clean this up.”

She picks Jaime up. These arms—Jaime knows them. He has enough presence of mind to tuck his head under her chin, and then he’s gone again.

* * *

Tyrion finished the story with a flourish, spreading his arms wide and turning with a flutter of his stunted fins. It was clearly a move he’d learned from Uncle Gerion, and though Tyrion’s attempt was clumsy, Jaime didn’t hold it against him.

* * *

When Jaime wakes, he can still smell the faint stench of the pool, but it’s no longer pervasive. Instead he smells dry dust and seaspray. He’s at Brienne’s home, just like before the pool, except a little worse for wear. Breathing hurts, his limbs are heavy, and his eyes feel dry. It takes him some time to sit up and open his eyes.

The room is awash in pink.

It’s close to dusk, the sky blushing as the sun goes down. Next to his bed, Brienne sits on a kitchen chair and they’re both pink, too. He sees the glistening tracks of freshly-shed tears. He hears her gentle breathing. He watches as she opens her eyes, a little frown, a flutter of lashes, before her gaze settles on him.

“You look horrible,” he croaks at her. He can’t do much else, with this throat. He hopes he doesn’t croak until the end of his days.

She rolls her eyes, as he wants her to. She says, “You don’t look so great yourself, surfer boy.” Her hand goes up, touching a tear track, and a confused wrinkle forms between her brows as if she is surprised at her own crying.

He can’t stand it. He reaches out, smoothing the space between her brows, then his hand glides downward to cup her jaw, his thumb wiping the tears off her cheek. “Did something happen?” he asks. “Or was I too successful in my attempt to delight you?”

“You nearly drowned,” she says, sniffling a little. “You could’ve died—wait, what are you talking about?”

In hindsight, it would perhaps be better for him to keep his momentary lapse of judgement to himself. It truly doesn’t reflect well on his intelligence, and she already looks halfway to angry. But his thumb is still wet with her tears, and later he will blame that—the one patch of wet skin on his thumb—for the confession spilling out of him. He just starts talking about how he thought it would be a lark, and for some reason he even tells her about how glorious she would be, iridescent—

”What am I, a squid?” she asks, indignant.

“I know you’re not, but  _ imagine.  _ You humans are so dull-minded sometimes.”

—and that, out of anything else, earns him a hiccup that may also be a chuckle. He ends his confession with, “Then I slipped again, but this time you weren’t around to catch me.”

The half-smile he’s coaxed out of her drops, then. “I’m sorry,” she says, and oh, wonderful, she’s about to cry again. “I shouldn’t have left you in there alone. I don’t know what I was thinking, you could’ve died, I’m so stupid—”

“Brienne,” Jaime cuts in, stopping her. “How old do you think I am?”

“You look like you’re in your thirties, but you’re much older, aren’t you?”

This gives him pause. If he looks around thirty years old to a human, and she looks younger than him… oh, gods. How young is she? “Yes, we can leave it at that,” he says. He clears his throat—to no avail, of course, considering he had inhaled and regurgitated pool water earlier today—and continues, “I am grown, you know. I’m not a child who constantly bumps his head on rocks.”

“But you—what if you’d been too tired, and you lost consciousness anyway?”

“Did I look as if I could faint at any time?”

“You were a little peaky,” she says, though already he can see she’s doubting herself.

“Yes, well, it smells foul in there, but I said nothing because I missed the water. If anything, that should also count against me.” His hand is still cupping her jaw, and when she begins to look down on her white knuckles, he tilts her head back. “Listen to me, wench. What happened today was unfortunate, but if we were to assign blame, then we should blame me. Now tell me what this,” he swipes another tear leaking off the corner of her eye, “is about.”

She pulls herself away from his touch and looks out the window. “It’s dark already,” she says. “I promised you a juice and I could use a tea, and maybe we’ll order takeout for dinner.”

She stands and flicks the lightswitch next to the door. Light floods the room, but her eyes are flat, inscrutable, and beneath them hang dark puffy bags. She looks haunted. He nearly tells her so, but something stops him.

“It’s not a long story, but if I have to tell it with nothing to do with my hands, I’ll cry again,” she says. “Do you need help getting into the chair?”

He shakes his head. It takes effort, but he manages to get himself onto the wheelchair, and though his limbs feel leaden, he can wheel himself to the dining room.

She fiddles with her device, then places it on the table. She then makes a production out of serving him what she calls guava juice. First she shakes the bottle, then she places ice cubes in his glass, then she pours it out. Last, she drops a straw into the glass, which he guesses she does purely to irritate him, though it’s a reusable metal one.

When she’s waiting for the kettle to fill, she says, “My mother died when I was very young, so growing up there was only me, my dad, and my older brother—Galladon. He taught me to swim, to surf, to hatch turtle eggs. This was before that environment NGO took over—well, anyway. Galladon taught me pretty much everything I knew.”

The kettle filled, she closes the lid and puts it on the stove. With a turn of a knob, flames begin licking the blackened bottom. She takes out a teapot and measures out tea leaves. “We were happy. I mean, I didn’t know about the money problems, back then, but we were still happy.” She grips the edge of the counter, hard. Jaime can only see her back, the rigid lines of it.

After a while, she continues, voice shaking, “Galladon and I were at the beach when we saw a girl who was tangled in her own parasail. The wind was too strong, and it tore her and her sail straight off the boat that should’ve been anchoring her. I was rash, and I got myself tangled. Galladon—”

Brienne turns to Jaime, her eyes meeting his, though it doesn’t seem like she’s seeing him at all. “He got me out of the ropes, and we bundled up the sail to take it back to shore.” She takes a breath. “That was when the rip hit us. We both knew what to do in that situation, but Galladon was carrying the sail. It unfurled and took him.”

The kettle hisses. Brienne turns off the stove and pours steaming water into the pot. As she places the lid on the teapot, she says, so softly Jaime can barely hear it, “His body washed up a week later.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaime says. It feels inadequate. He wants to ask what happened to her father, but his absence speaks too loudly for Jaime to mention it. Brienne fumbles around, looking for things to do, so he says, “I can’t drink this juice.”

“Why not?”

“We promised I’d practise some more before I earned it.” He extends his arms, then, and she understands.

Standing in front of him, Brienne bends down so he can wrap his arms around her shoulders. He kicks his footrests away and puts his feet on the floor, one at a time. She straightens. He follows. She has her arms around his waist, gripping tighter than she needs to.

“Now, we’re not in water, and my feet hurt terribly, so you’d have to keep holding on to me,” he says, as imperiously as he can, cradled in her embrace.

She half-laughs into his hair.

“I’m serious, Brienne. You mustn’t drop me.”

A shudder rocks her frame. “I won’t.”

From the distance, there’s music. It’s faint, in this house, but Jaime imagines it booming and relentless wherever it comes from. Still, the beats thump in time with her heart—he can feel it, pressed so tightly to her—and unbidden, he shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

Brienne doesn’t ask him what he’s doing. Good. He doesn’t know either.

“I used to have a brother,” Jaime says. He must be drunk on the juice he hasn’t even sipped, because he continues, “He’s younger than me, but he’s twice as clever. He used to tell me stories he got from our aunt and uncle. He wanted to walk on land, like Uncle Gerion wanted to.”

“What’s his name?” Brienne asks.

“Tyrion. He was a scholar before he even killed his first prey. They thought he was going to die, with how small he was. He died, but not because he was small.”

Brienne says nothing, but she, too, begins to sway from one foot to the next, in time with him and the distant music.

“Our uncle disappeared one day. He left a message about going on land. We tried to convince Tyrion that he was dead, and it felt like he listened to us. He didn’t say a word when Father destroyed the tomes that he studied with Uncle Gerion. When we thought he’d forgotten Uncle… Tyrion disappeared. No messages, this time.”

When he stops talking, Brienne pulls herself back, peering at Jaime. “And then?”

“That’s it. He’s gone.”

Brienne shakes her head. “That’s not enough. How’d you know Tyrion isn’t walking on land? How’d you know your uncle isn’t, too?”

Jaime frowns. Pursuing the land will kill you. That’s something everyone in their family knows. The land is no place for merfolk. And yet. Jaime is here, on land. Not walking, not yet, but he lives. “We were taught,” he says, slowly as it dawns on him, “that surviving on land was impossible, but it isn’t.” He looks at Brienne. She’s bright red, but not like usual. No, she’s incandescent, brimming with resolve. He asks her, “Will you help me find them?”

Her answering grin is pearlescent—her entire being is a treasure long lost, and he the fortunate diver happening upon her. He only hopes she does not throw him away, if they find his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: drowning, whump, heavy angst, death, loss
> 
> Remember when in chapter one I promised this would be light on lore and heavy on feels? Well, it's still feelsy, but I still wrote the entire legend (which, as you may have guessed, is based heavily on Aegon's Conquest) though only the Lannister-adjacent parts made it to the fic. Tell me if you want to read the entire thing, and I can upload it either as a one-shot on ao3 or post it on tumblr. If not, the cut bits aren't relevant to the manmaid plotline anyway.
> 
> Goodwin's physical therapy pool looks [sort of like this](https://www.virginiahospitalcenter.com/HealthInformation/The_Pool_is_Open_for_Physical_Therapy.aspx), though not exactly.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Do leave a kudos and/or a comment if you enjoyed this fic, and catch me on [tumblr](https://nire-the-mithridatist.tumblr.com/) for status updates on this fic (tagged "manmaid au"), prompt fills (tagged "prompt me", and my ask box always welcomes prompts, but truly no promises on when it gets filled), and general reblogging/shitposting.


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